2
The Climb
“. . . And, though she implored me to stay at her side, I steeled my heart and returned to my uncle’s ship, for bound by duty was I, and even the promise of a queen’s love was insufficient to sway me . . .”
“Does he ever stop?” Shamil muttered to Lyvia as they clambered to the top of a craggy rock face, one of several they had traversed that morning, each time to the accompaniment of Tolveg’s endless epic.
“When he finally gets to the part where he returns home,” she replied with a wince. “And then he just starts over, and the story changes with every telling. His lovelorn queen was merely a countess last time.”
Shamil had woken that morning to the stomach-teasing scent of meat on the spit, finding Lyvia roasting a fresh-caught rabbit over the fire. Noble origins or not, s
